Drills. Drills. Drills.
Not to be confused with the 90’s hit by Destiny’s Child, Bills, Bills Bills.
Never in a million years did I think, we as teachers, would be in a situation where we had to sacrifice one form of safety for another form of safety.
A few weeks ago I saw a post about lockdowns in schools and it got my mind absolutely racing!
Active shooter drills.
Fire drills.
Tornado drills.
Earthquake drills.
How in the world are we supposed to maintain social distancing during something like that?
By law, and rightfully so, we have to practice what to do in the midst of a disaster at school, but what does that look like when you are already living in the middle of one big disaster.
How do you sacrifice keeping kids healthy to prepare for a potential problem?
We line kids up in tight rows for fire drills.
We squeeze kids together for tornado drills.
We gather kids in corners for shooter drills.
6 feet of separation doesn’t exist in these moments.
Will we actually practice these this year?
How do you prioritize one disaster in front of another?
Kids should not have to deal with any of this.
Teachers should not have to train for any of this.
But here we are.
This blog post doesn’t come with answers.
This blog post just comes with honesty.
I’m freaking out.
Are you?
We all laughed when they told us that we should now keep our doors open, but locked. Of course, there was reasoning behind this – if there was an emergency we could just shut our doors, but the ridiculousness of it all just struck me. 2020 seems to be a year of contradictions. August is always tough, but this year more than ever. It’s not the kids. It’s the constant change. Once we get our balance, another rug is pulled out from under us…we wobble and regain our footing only to have another rug pulled. Not blaming anyone, just making an analogy.
And I have never hated technology more…it’s not just that I’m old, I admit to that. It’s that I feel helpless to assist my kids! Their chrome book won’t work, they accidentally lost all their information, they can’t figure out how to make something work and I can’t spend too much time next to their desk helping them navigate the maze of options. Things meant to help us have only added additional hurdles to my day. And bless them, my virtual students are needing me as well.
So sorry for the rant. I love my new students – I really hate our new way of life.